Bois Blanc Island ferry: Plaunt's one boat from Cheboygan, thinning out toward winter

Late September finds the Bois Blanc boat already out of its summer shape. In July and early August Plaunt Transportation runs six sailings a day out of Cheboygan, seven on Fridays; this fall it is three each way on most days, with a fourth departure from the mainland on Friday evenings and a later start on Sundays. November cuts that again, to two trips on some weekdays and a single round trip on Saturday. And from December until the end of April, the company prints no times at all: any crossing in those months is strictly weather permitting.

Waiting across the water is Bois Blanc, a large wooded island in the Straits of Mackinac, east of Mackinac Island, organized as its own township within Mackinac County. It has a lighthouse, a school, a post office, a fire hall, a tavern and a landing strip on the company's map, and a small settlement at Pointe Aux Pins where the ferry docks. There is no bridge, and for people and cars the boat is the regular way over.

One company, one boat and one crew carry all of it. That makes the timetable below the whole story rather than a sample of it, and it makes booking ahead for a car more than a formality in the months when the Kristen D. is down to three runs.

September and October alike, then a thinner November

Plaunt Transportation 2026 schedule (revised February 2026), September through November rows; read on September 25, 2026 and checked against the company's booking system   Plaunt Transportation — 2026 Schedule · 2026-09-25

Round trip on the rate card, one way at a time online

Plaunt's printed rates are round-trip prices. Its online booking works the other way: each direction is sold as a separate one-way ticket, and the return has to be added before you pay, at a price that comes to a few cents more than the round-trip figure on the card once both halves are paid.

A vehicle ticket carries the vehicle and nothing else. Each person aboard it, the driver as well, buys a separate passenger ticket.

Plaunt Transportation rate card and 2026 schedule header, read on September 25, 2026   Plaunt Transportation — Rates · 2026-09-25

Water Street by the drawbridge, and the township pier at Pointe Aux Pins

Down the Cheboygan River and across the Straits to Pointe Aux Pins

The first part of the trip is river, not lake. The boat leaves Water Street heading north down the Cheboygan River, and passes the Cheboygan Crib Light as it comes out into the Straits of Mackinac. From there Bois Blanc is straight ahead, with the township dock on the south shore facing the mainland.

On a clear day the company points out the Fourteen-Foot Shoal and Poe Reef lighthouses to the east and the Mackinac Bridge to the west, and on the way out of the river a Coast Guard cutter when it is in port. The whole run takes about three quarters of an hour.

Loading a car, and what it may carry, on the Cheboygan boat

• Reserve the vehicle

  Walk-on passengers can just turn up, but Plaunt strongly recommends a reservation for any vehicle, by phone or through the Book Now link on its site.

• The crew drives it on

  In Cheboygan you leave the car in the paved city lot; on the island you leave it on the causeway. In both places an employee loads it for you.

• Fuel limits per vehicle

  At most two 6-gallon cans of gasoline, two 20-lb propane cylinders, or one of each. Diesel is not restricted.

• The car ticket covers only the car

  The $86.00 round-trip car rate carries the vehicle; whoever rides in it is ticketed separately, the driver too.

• Plan winter trips by phone

  From December through April no times are printed and every crossing depends on the weather and the ice. Call the office before planning any trip in those months.

• Thanksgiving week is different

  No boat on Thanksgiving Day, and no early boat from Cheboygan the following morning.

Ninety-four years of one family on the Straits

Charles Plaunt started the company in 1932, and the family name is still on the crew list: Curt and Jason Plaunt are among the crew the company lists today. Its boat, the Kristen D., was built by Blount Boats in Warren, Rhode Island, in 1987, and in 1998 Basic Marine in Escanaba lengthened her by 30 feet, making her the 95-foot, 36-foot-wide vessel she is now. Two Detroit Diesel 671 engines drive her.

Michigan's other island boats on this site make an instructive contrast. The Beaver Island ferry is a long open-lake passage of more than two hours, owned by the island community, and ends in mid-December. Harsens Island is a short river shuttle that never stops and takes cash only. Bois Blanc sits between the two: a scheduled 45-minute crossing, but one whose winter is left to the weather rather than to a closing date. Other ferries of the Great Lakes are listed by lake.

The Kristen D., a 1987 Blount hull stretched by 30 feet

Bois Blanc crossing questions from the Water Street dock